Peake dismissed from his mind as grotesque the suggestion that he should
contribute a hundred pounds to the organ fund; it revolted his sense of
the fitness of things; the next morning he had entirely forgotten it.
But two days afterwards, when he was finishing his midday dinner with a
piece of Cheshire cheese, his wife said:
"James, have you thought anything more about that organ affair?" She
gave a timid little laugh.
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, holding a morsel of cheese
on the end of his knife; then he ate the cheese in silence.
"Nan," he said at length, rather deliberately, "have they been trying to
come round you? Because it won't work. Upon my soul I don't know what
some people are dreaming of. I tell you I never was more surprised i' my
life than when your sister made that suggestion. I'll give 'em a guinea
towards their blooming organ if that's any use to 'em. Ella, go and see
if the horse is ready."
"Yes, father."
He felt genuinely aggrieved.
"If they'd get a new organist," he remarked, with ferocious satire, five
minutes later, as he lit a cigar, "and a new choir--I could see summat
in that."
In another minute he was driving at a fine pace towards his colliery at
Toft End. The horse, with swift instinct, had understood that to-day its
master was not in the mood for badinage.
Half-way down the hill into Shawport he overtook a lady walking very
slowly.
"Mrs Sutton!" he shouted in astonishment, and when he had finished with
the tense frown which involuntarily accompanied the effort of stopping
the horse dead within its own length, his face softened into a beautiful
smile. "How's this?" he questioned.
"Our mare's gone lame," Mrs Sutton answered, "and as I'm bound to get
about I'm bound to walk."
He descended instantly from the dogcart. "Climb up," he said, "and tell
me where you want to go to."
"Nay, nay."
"Climb up," he repeated, and he helped her into the dogcart.
"Well," she said, laughing, "what must be, must. I was trudging home,
and I hope it isn't out of your way."
"It isn't," he said; "I'm for Toft End, and I should have driven up
Trafalgar Road anyhow."
Mrs Sutton was one of James Peake's ideals. He worshipped this small
frail woman of fifty-five, whose soft eyes were the mirror of as candid
a soul as was ever prisoned in Staffordshire clay. More than forty years
ago he had gone to school with her, and the remembrance of having kissed
the pale girl when she was crying over a broken slate was still vivid in
his mind. For nearly half a century she had remained to him exactly that
same ethereal girl. The sole thing about her that puzzled him was that
she should have found anything attractive in the man whom she allowed to
marry her--Alderman Sutton. In all else he regarded her as an angel.
And to many another, besides James Peake, it seemed that Sarah Sutton
wore robes of light. She was a creature born to be the succour of
misery, the balm of distress. She would have soothed the two thieves on
Calvary. Led on by the bounteous instinct of a divine, all-embracing
sympathy, the intrepid spirit within her continually forced its fragile
physical mechanism into an activity which appeared almost supernatural.
According to every rule of medicine she should have been dead long
since; but she lived--by volition. It was to the credit of Bursley that
the whole town recognized in Sarah Sutton the treasure it held.
"I wanted to see you," Mrs Sutton said, after they had exchanged various
inquiries.
"What about?"
"Mrs Lovatt was telling me yesterday you hadn't made up your mind about
that organ subscription." They were ascending the steepest part of
Oldcastle Street, and Peake lowered the reins and let the horse into a
walk.
"Now look here, Mrs Sutton," he began, with passionate frankness, "I can
talk to you. You know me; you know I'm not one of their set, as it were.
Of course I've got a pew and all that; but you know as well as I do that
I don't belong to the chapel lot. Why should they ask me? Why should
they come to me? Why should I give all that sum?"
"Why?" she repeated the word, smiling. "You're a generous man; you've
felt the pleasure of giving. I always think of you as one of the most
generous men in the town. I'm sure you've often realized what a really
splendid thing it is to be able to give. D'you know, it comes over me
sometimes like a perfect shock that if I couldn't give--something,
do--something, I shouldn't be able to live; I would be obliged to go to
bed and die right off."
"Ah!" he murmured, and then paused. "We aren't all like you, Mrs
Sutton. I wish to God we were. But seriously, I'm not for giving that
hundred; it's against my grain, and that's flat--you'll excuse me
speaking plain."
"I like it," she said quickly. "Then I know where I am."
"No," he reiterated firmly, "I'm not for giving that hundred."
"Then I'm bound to say I'm sorry," she returned kindly. "The whole
scheme will be ruined, for it's one of those schemes that can only be
carried out in a particular way--if they aren't done on the inspiration
of the moment they're not done at all. Not that I care so much for the
organ itself. It's the idea that was so grand. Fancy--nine hundred
pounds all in a minute; such a thing was never known in Bursley Chapel
before!"
"Well," said Peake, "I guess when it comes to the pinch they'll find
someone else instead of me."
"They won't; there isn't another man who could afford it and trade so
bad."
Peake was silent; but he was inflexible. Not even Mrs Sutton could make
the suggestion of this subscription seem other than grossly unfair to
him, an imposition on his good-nature.
"Think it over," she said abruptly, after he had assisted her to alight
at the top of Trafalgar Road. "Think it over, to oblige me."
"I'd do anything to oblige you," he replied. "But I'll tell you
this"--he put his mouth to her ear and whispered, half-smiling at the
confession. "You call me a generous man, but whenever that organ's
mentioned I feel just like a miser--yes, as hard as a miser. Good-bye!
I'm very glad to have had the pleasure of driving you up." He beamed on
her as the horse shot forward.